33w: Remembering Yangkung

Dear Bob,

This is a special letter to you written on a special day. Why? Because today, your dad's father would've turned 61 years old.

Every October 10th for the last three years, there's always this bittersweet pang in my heart, remembering the so many great memories I had with him and wanting so badly to have more of those memories. I knew him for about five, six years before he passed away in 2010, and that was before I married your dad and entered the family.

But you know what, Nak, even then, he always made me feel like a part of his family. He always made me feel welcomed, he always greeted me with his warm smile, and just made me feel somehow belong with the way he talked, joked, and treated me. He was a tough man, your grandfather, but there was this fatherly side of him that I found very endearing, and that's the part I miss the most now that he's gone.

Every October 10th for the last three years, there's this huge curiosity of knowing how is he doing now? What would have happened if he were still here? And there's this huge urge to just tell him how I'm doing now. How I'm happily married to his son, who's been treating me more than well especially during this pregnancy, and how he would have been so proud of your dad.

This October 10th falls on your 33rd week of living as a little peanut inside me. Last year today, I really wished that he'd been here to witness your father and I got married. Now, a few weeks before you should be born, again I wish he were here so he can hold you in his arms like the loving grandfather he was.

Here's Yangkung with your cousin Kinan. Oh how I wish it was you in his arms next month.

So, Baby Girl, here's a promise; even though he's not around anymore, I know that his charm and charisma is so strong that I will always remember him the same way for as long as I live, and together with your dad, I will keep telling you stories about what a marvelous man your Yangkung was. I'm somehow sure we will never run out of good examples in life that we can learn from him.

And every October 10th for the upcoming years, we will take a break from our daily routine to send our thoughts to him, to send him a longer prayer, wishing him the best of place that he deserves up there.







PS: I miss you, Pak.